Conventional aqueous thermal ink jet or piezo aqueous inks have been found to cause cockle, curl and/or showthrough, which is readily apparent when printing on plain paper, particularly if the amount of water in the ink exceeds 50% by weight. Also, printing on non-porous substrate requires specialized ink formulations with binders incorporated, and drying systems that often limit print speed and increase cost per prints.
A number of approaches have been used to increase the printing latitude of aqueous inks including the use of hydrophobic and/or coagulating undercoat on the substrate. The use of undercoats increases cost and complexity of the printing system and cannot be applied universally to all types of substrates, including plain and coated paper.
Digital offset lithography printing systems require-offset type inks that are specifically designed and optimized to be compatible with various subsystems, including an ink delivery system and a laser imaging system, to enable high quality printing at high speed. Related art inks are soluble in dampening fluid such as octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane, may cause image background, are costly, and accommodate a narrow design space.